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Re: (meteorobs) "Electrophonic" Fireball sound nonsense



mike
there is a difference between not being able to find in one's own vast
knowledge a solution to a problem, and the declaration of the problem to be
"nonsense"
there is clearly some phenomenon lurking here - and according at least to
the url to which dr. phillips directed us, it has been lurking for quite a
while - longer than you and me put together!
why do you persist in:
a) declaring that which you do not understand to be nonsense and
b) perpetuating what you say you think the list has had enough of
for myself, i would like to see adequate resources put to an objective
analysis of the phenomenon - we all may learn something thereby
best wishes
dale

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Linnolt" <mlinnolt@alum.mitdot edu>
To: <meteorobs@atmob.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 6:06 PM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) "Electrophonic" Fireball sound nonsense


> Certainly some meteors may produce sounds, in the direct acoustical sense
of an energetic object falling through the lower atmosphere, but I am saying
that these "electrophonic" sounds that are claimed to be produced
simultaneously with the light flash and somehow "detected" by people without
radios is nonsense.
>
> Simply doing a back-of-envelope calculation will make it clear this is
ridiculous. Assuming a big fireball produces maybe 100kW of RF power briefly
(I doubt it would be that high anyway), at a distance of 60km this would be
just 0.0002uW/cm^2. The ambient background RF exposure is estimated to be
around 0.003uW/cm^2. (Mantiply, 1997) Thats the stuff we all are exposed to
everyday from the radio waves from earth and space. So how can these reports
claim to be detecting signals less than 1/10th of the background levels? So,
I would like someone to explain how these weak signals are being picked up
by "detectors" swamped by background?
> Not to mention the RF near cell towers is 1-10uW/cm^2 and the 800-900Mhz
cell phone standard (ANSI/IEEE) is 579uW/cm^2. Why are we not bombarded by
people reporting hearing buzzing and whistling from their teeth or glasses
whenever they use their portable phones? I havent heard of any such reports,
where the RF levels are a million times higher than from meteors!!
>
> Mike Linnolt
>
>
> --- "Dr. Tony Phillips" <phillips@spacescience.com> wrote:
> > There are legitimate disagreements about the causes
> > of meteor sounds, and
> > whether all of them we hear about are truly real.
> > Meteor sounds, however,
> > are not nonsense.
>
>
> > At 05:09 PM 8/14/2002 -0400, Dale wrote:
> > >i do not normally post and i realize that michael
> > is an old-hand here
> > >however, it is known that dental work, for example,
> > can and has acted as an
> > >rf detector for am radio stations
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